


so, so cold in the marrow of my bones

by castielanderson



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Borderline Personality Disorder, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Drug Use, Dubious Consent, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt, dennis uses every bad coping skill, dennis uses sex to self-harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-07 01:35:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16844500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/castielanderson/pseuds/castielanderson
Summary: Dennis rolls emotional battery during Chardee Macdennis.  Mac says things he can't take back.  This is what happens as a result.





	so, so cold in the marrow of my bones

“You’re actually a terrible fucking person, Den. You should be in jail. Remember in high school, when Ms. Klinsky raped you, and you tried to pretend like everything was fine but you came to me for a shit load of weed? Now that’s you. You’re Ms. Klinsky. You hurt people the same way she hurt you. Honestly, Den, the world would be a much better place without you - wouldn’t you agree? I think you should kill yourself, Dennis. I really do. You - “   
  
“Time’s up! No way, Dennis! You did it! We won! The Golden Geese win again, boners!”   
  
“Oh, goddamnit!”   
  
“You tried, Mac.”   
  
“Ha ha! Come on, Dennis! You can smash Mac’s piece.”   
  
Stomping on the action figure does nothing for him. Dennis is hollow inside. While everyone cleans up, he sneaks outside to the alley and vomits onto the cement.   
  
.   
  
The car ride home is silent. Dennis doesn’t know what he feels. He’s numb. He’s not even in his body. He’s gone.   
  
“Dennis?” Mac asks, when they step inside the apartment. “Dennis?” His hand comes down on Dennis’ shoulder and he flinches.   
  
“What?” he gasps.   
  
“Are you okay, man?” Mac asks, voice soft. “Because - like that was all the game, Dennis. You know I didn’t mean that, right?”   
  
Dennis nods, swallowing hard.   
  
“Right, well - “   
  
“I’m going to bed,” Dennis says suddenly, and he disappears into his room.   
  
.   
  
It’s noon. It’s noon and usually by this time, he and Mac are heading out the door. Dennis hasn’t gotten out of bed. He hasn’t made a move at all since he woke up. He can’t feel his limbs. It’s psychosomatic.    
  
There’s a rap on the door, followed by Mac’s voice, “Den?”   
  
Dennis squeezes his eyes shut, acutely aware of the overpowering lump in his throat.   
  
“Dennis, I’m coming in.”   
  
The door swings open. Dennis looks up at him, but his eyes are unfocused and his vision is blurry.   
  
“What,” he says, shortly. He doesn’t want to have this conversation. He doesn’t want to be awake.    
  
“We gotta head to the bar soon, man,” Mac says.   
  
Dennis rolls over onto his side, away from him. “I’m not going.”   
  
“Are you sick?” Mac asks. His voices carries concern. Dennis thinks he can shove any and all concern up his ass.   
  
“No,” he says shortly.   
  
“Then, I don’t understand,” Mac says. “What’s going on?”   
  
“I’m not going,” Dennis says again, slow and mocking.    
  
“Dennis, what - ?”   
  
“I’m not going,” Dennis repeats. “And I want you to leave.”   
  
Mac intakes a sharp breath. “Den - “   
  
“Leave, Mac,” Dennis says, sharper. “I need you to leave me alone.”   
  
“Dennis, I can’t just - “   
  
“Get out!” Dennis roars. He still hasn’t turned once to look at him.    
  
Mac, stunned but convinced, finally does. Dennis hears the tread of his boots returning to the living room. The jangle of keys coming off the coffee table. The door opening, shutting again. The rumbling of the lock. Heavy footfall down the hallway.   
  
Dennis closes his eyes, hot tears burning down his cheeks. It wouldn’t hurt so fucking much if Mac wasn’t right.    
  
Gentle sobs lull Dennis to sleep, shaking him until exhaustion takes hold of his body.   
  
.   
  
He wakes up again when the sun is low in the sky. Winter always fucks with his head. It’s only four but it feels like he’s missed a whole day. What does it matter anymore? Fuck the sun. Fuck feeling happy.   
  
Dennis’ limbs feel absurdly heavy as he stands up and drags himself to the bathroom. He pisses lazily in the toilet and washes his hands with scalding water. Without thinking about it, he opens the bottom drawer on the vanity and pulls out a razor blade.   
  
Mac used to try and throw his razor blades out. But Dennis always got more, putting them in increasingly ridiculous places. Eventually Mac gave up. Dennis keeps them in plain sight again.    
  
Splitting his skin is as natural as breathing at this point. He started when he was fourteen, going through bouts of being clean long enough for his scars to fade away. He has a couple that are decades old, silvery—white against his already pale skin. It’s hard to see them without being in the right light. The newer scars are pink, ranging in size and heal factor. The deeper ones have started molting his skin. If he pinches his forearm, the topography is noticeably uneven. Half the reason Dennis cuts is so that he keeps visible records of his self-mutilation.    
  
Sometimes he likes when people stare. He wants everyone to know how much pain he’s in, and how far he’ll go to try and alleviate it somehow.    
  
But when Mac stares with that pathetic worry, Dennis wants to hide.   
  
It doesn’t matter anymore.   
  
Dennis presses the good end of the blade into his wrist and pulls, horizontally. The blood rushes to the surface, beading along the line. Dennis does it again. And again. And again. And again. Until a third of his arm is bleeding freely and the blood is finally, finally starting to drop down to his elbow.    
  
The razor clutters to the countertop. Dennis pulls a wad of toilet paper off the roll and presses it hard against his cuts, trying to pull most of the blood out faster. He’s too lazy to bandage his arm, but he doesn’t want a giant stain on his sweatshirt. He waits several minutes for the bleeding to stop, and then pulls down his sleeve again.    
  
The apartment is really starting to grow dark when Dennis exits the bathroom. Only hazy, pink light remains on the tops of the walls. Dennis doesn’t flick on a lamp. He collapses straight on the couch, arms and legs spread eagle. He stares blankly at the molding and watches the color change until the sun finally sets. He feels dead.    
  
He sits in the dark, unmoving. At some point, he starts crying again. His arm throbs and stings. He uses it as an anchor. He feels trapped inside his body and a thousand miles away at the same time. Tears pool up on his jawline. They fall down the front of his sweatshirt. He doesn’t move. His nose runs. He lets it.   
  
Every inch of his body, his mind, his spirit, begs for death. He wishes he had the energy to suffocate himself.   
  
Some time, long after the sun has set, the front door opens. Light from the hallway blasts the side of Dennis’ face. His eye involuntarily squints, but he doesn’t move.   
  
“Dennis?” Mac asks. He closes the door. “Shit, shit, shit.” He turns on the overhead light. “You weren’t answering my texts, and I was worried - “   
  
His voice stops as his eyes take in the sight of Dennis’ sweatshirt sleeve shoved haphazardly up, dry blood smeared across his skin. Dennis lifts his gaze, tears crusted around his eyes and down his cheeks.   
  
“ - you might do something like this,” Mac finishes.   
  
Dennis doesn’t react. He doesn’t feel anything.    
  
Mac lowers himself down next to Dennis. Only when his fingers brush his wrist does Dennis finally snap. He pulls his arm away violently, and stands up so fast he goes dizzy.   
  
“Don’t touch me,” he hisses. “You don’t get to be worried, asshole.”    
  
He stomps away, shaking his sleeve out. He hasn’t eaten today, so he knows it’ll be way more effective when he swipes the vodka bottle from the top of the fridge and starts chugging it.   
  
Mac flies off the couch. “Dennis, goddamnit!”   
  
Dennis attempts to dance around him, but he’s too dizzy and too tired. Mac wrenches the bottle from his grip, slopping liquor onto the floor.   
  
“Have you taken your meds today?” he says with edge.   
  
Dennis spits in his face. “Fuck you, and fuck my meds.”   
  
He storms into his room, swipes his wallet from his nightstand and returns. He heads straight for the door, stopping to wrestle his boots and coat on.   
  
“Dennis?” Mac asks aggressively. “Where are you going?”   
  
“To a bar that isn’t ours,” Dennis growls. “And don’t you dare fucking follow me.”   
  
.   
  
Dennis is shitfaced. After twelve shots of whiskey, he’s feeling completely fucking crazy. Suddenly he gets an intense craving for a cigarette. He stumbles to the bartender and closes his tab before heading to the door. Someone tries to stop him on his way out.   
  
“Hey, buddy? You gonna be okay? You’ve had a lot to drink.”   
  
“Don’ sweat it,” he mumbles. “I’m a big time alc’holic.”   
  
He slips a little on the ice outside the door, but stays upright. He rustles around in his coat pocket until he finds his pack of cigs and a lighter. He takes the first drag and feels the tension leave his shoulders immediately. Cigarette steady between his lips, Dennis walks forward, into the cold night.   
  
It’s almost Christmas. All the urban trees are decorated with lights, and the storefronts are warm and glittery. Dennis feels something weird tugging his chest.   
  
He’s never going to feel happy again.   
  
.   
  
Dennis walks around until his body is half- numb, the cigarette butt a smoldering ending in his mouth. He spits it to the ground and stomps on it.   
  
He’s still burning from the whiskey. His mind is running at a thousand thoughts per second, none of them good.   
  
He knows he’s a terrible person. He’s tried to be proud of it.    
  
It was the one comparison none of them ever voiced.   
  
Dennis could hurt women, and he could be hurt by Ms. Klinsky, and his dad could pimp him out to old women, completely derailing any semblance of stability, and he could be a stripper in some fucked up attempt to deal with his trauma, but no one ever linked Dennis’ pain and sadism together. It was forbidden territory.   
  
Until now.   
  
He always wanted to kill himself when he thought about Ms. Klinsky. Maybe he should. Therapists always talked to him about the cycle of abuse. He could end it with himself.   
  
Dennis blinks, looking around him. He’s ended up near the edge of the Delaware River. The lights of the city shimmer across the water. It looks pretty. Dennis wants to drown himself in it.    
  
He doesn’t though.    
  
He keeps walking til he finds another bar. It looks more like a club from the outside. Dennis squints at the sign until his mind produces: The Rainbow.    
  
Dennis moves without thinking. A gay bar means three things: alcohol, drugs, and rough sex. Everything Dennis needs right now.    
  
A world of sound and light explode around him when he walks through the door. He’s awkward and out of place in his pajamas and winter coat, but he doesn’t care. He just wants to forget what it feels like to be alive.   
  
There’s an empty seat at the bar, and Dennis swipes it. He tracks down a bartender and asks for tequila on the rocks with lime. Tequila always makes him feel the most fucked up. It would be a fun drink to get alcohol poisoning with.   
  
Dennis swirls the liquid around his cup before taking a large sip. He shudders around the burn, a satisfied smile splitting his cracked lips. He rockets through two more before he’s approached by an extremely attractive man holding two cocktails.   
  
“Your eyes are incredible,” he says, sliding Dennis a glass. “But they look so sad.”   
  
“What is this?” Dennis asks, looking at the blue and green drink in his hand.   
  
“Amazing,” the guy replies. His eyes are brown. He has a nice smile, a scruffy beard, a built body. Dennis feels his stomach flip. “Just try it. You clearly got something you need to forget.”   
  
Dennis takes a tentative taste. It’s good. It tastes like blue raspberry. And lime. He could knock it back like juice.   
  
“Wow,” he says quietly.   
  
The hunky guy laughs, eyes crinkling. “Talk to me, Curls. What are you doing here in your sweatpants, eyes all glazed over like that?”   
  
Dennis crunches ice between his teeth.   
  
“I’m trying to forget about someone,” he says, voice a little raspy. He smirks. “I don’t have to stay in these clothes.”   
  
The guy laughs again. “What’s your name?”   
  
“Dennis,” he says.   
  
“I’m Hunter,” he says, offering a hand. Dennis almost shakes it before he realizes there’s a small baggy in his palm. Coke. “You wanna head toward the back of the place, take some bumps? You can show me what’s underneath that ratty t-shirt.”   
  
“If you find me something to smoke, you might even get to see what I’m packing underneath my briefs,” Dennis says with a crooked grin.    
  
Hunter smiles wide. “For you, pretty boy, I’ll get anything.”   
  
Dennis snorts. “Don’t get too attached.”   
  
.   
  
It’s a gay bar. A popular gay bar. So it’s only natural that one of the back doors leads to a coke den. Dennis sheds his coat and his t-shirt, and Hunter finds Dennis a pipe. The familiar high of crack pushes him to strip down to his Ralph Lauren briefs, cock straining in them as he grinds several men. But it’s Hunter who gets his lips on Dennis’ first.   
  
Dennis responds with ferocity, teeth gnashing against his lips as his tongue pushes inside Hunter’s mouth. Hunter runs a thumb across Dennis’ erect nipple. Dennis keens. Hunter laughs.    
  
“Cool yourself, big boy,” Hunter scolds, palming Dennis’ cock through the fabric of his underwear. “I live in the penthouse of this building. You interested?”   
  
“Please,” Dennis groans, leaning forward to nip Hunter’s mouth.   
  
“Grab your shit and I’ll lead you up the tower, Princess.”   
  
Dennis grabs his clothes off some table and follows after Hunter. As soon as the elevator door opens, Dennis is shoved inside, against the wall. Hunters hot mouth finds the curve of Dennis’ neck. His cock instantly hardens again. A shaky breath comes whistling out his throat. Hunter responds by dropping to his knees. He pulls Dennis’ boxers down before Dennis even has time to blink and takes his cock. Dennis inhales sharply and let’s out a small whine.   
  
Hunter’s tongue flattens against his head, and Dennis smacks a hand against his mouth. God, he’s so fucking loud. Hunter pushes down the shaft, taking all of Dennis in him with one smooth movement. Dennis lets out an involuntary cry. Hunter continues in a steady pattern for just a few seconds before the elevator dings.   
  
With a wicked grin, Hunter grabs Dennis by the waist, using one hand to hold him and the other to wrap Dennis’ legs around his waist. Dennis’ cock presses against Hunter’s and his grip weakens around Hunter‘s neck.   
  
Before Dennis knows what’s happening, his back is hitting a bed, and Hunter is towering over him.   
  
“You still tight, baby boy?”   
  
Dennis’ scoops upward, capturing Hunter’s lips against his again. He can taste his own pre-cum on Hunter’s tongue. “Fuck me,” he growls.   
  
Without hesitation, Hunter presses a finger inside him. Dennis breaks the kiss to let out a horribly needy whine.   
  
“Shit,” he hisses.   
  
Hunter presses a second finger inside, starting to move a steady rhythm in and out. Dennis feels something pool in his abdomen.   
  
Hunter presses a third. Dennis throws his head back.   
  
Without warning, Hunter removes his hand and shoves himself inside Dennis. Without lube. Dennis cries out, pain splitting him down the middle.   
  
In an instant, he’s flooded with panic. He no longer feels a large, masculine body on top of him, but a bony, feminine one. Hunter doesn’t notice any difference as he picks up the pace, slamming in and out of Dennis with incredible speed.    
  
A burst of pleasure hits Dennis in his gut and he fights his mind. This is fine. He wants this. He wanted rough sex. Pain is good. Pain is pleasure.    
  
He wants this, he wants this, he wants -    
  
“Hun - Hunter,” Dennis tries, panic fading his consciousness. It doesn’t sound like anything but encouragement. Dennis feels like his mouth is filled with cotton balls.   
  
It doesn’t matter if he wants this. He deserves it.    
  
Dennis comes, but it feels more like an uncontrollable explosion. No pleasure, just detonation. He feels oddly cold and empty as soon as Hunter pulls out. It’s all he can do to try to regulate his breath. Hunter is breathing fast too.   
  
“God,” Hunter breathes. He looks down at Dennis with a smile. “You’re so pretty.”   
  
Dennis pulls his arms up, laying them down across his face. He can’t look at Hunter.    
  
“Dennis?”   
  
“‘M good,” Dennis mumbles. “That was good.”   
  
“No,” Hunter says, Dennis realizes his voice has gone weirdly quiet. “You’re bleeding.”    
  
Dennis flips his arms over. Fuck. He scratched a couple scabs off.    
  
“Here, I - I have supplies in my bathroom,” Hunter stutters.    
  
Dennis launches off the bed and stalks past him. “I’ll take care of it by myself,” he snaps.   
  
.   
  
Hunter has put his briefs back on when Dennis returns with bandaids on his cuts. He sources his own briefs, putting them on in silence.   
  
“Look, Dennis - “   
  
Dennis whips his head upward. “We are not discussing my self-harm behaviors,” he spits in quick succession.   
  
Hunter blanches. “I wasn’t - I was just gonna say you can spend the night here. I imagine the crash is gonna suck.”   
  
“Fuck,” Dennis mutters. “You got any aspirin?”   
  
Hunter throws him a bottle.   
  
.   
  
Dennis wakes to the sound of his phone vibrating. He feels like shit, emotionally and physically. With a loud groan, Dennis unearths his phone from the mattress underneath him. Mac is calling. A surge of anger rips through his chest. Dennis lets it go to voicemail.    
  
He has seventeen unanswered calls - all with accompanying voicemails - and thirty-six unread messages. Dennis scrolls through to find most of them are from Mac, but one voicemail is from Dee. Dennis presses play.   
  
“Hey, Den. I know you’re probably pissed at Mac, which you have every right to be, so I’m just offering up my services instead. I know you’re probably fucked up right now, and I don’t want you to go off the deep end, so just - call me if you need me, Dennis.”   
  
It’s a sweet sentiment, but it’s also lost on him. He and Dee might be twins, but sometimes they’re so goddamn different. Where Dee explodes, Dennis implodes. He finds it way harder to escape the unyielding destruction. Dee has an easier time unloading her problems onto other people. Dennis would rather eat nails than even acknowledge that anything is wrong with him.   
Sure, maybe he could complain about Mac being an asshole with Dee. They like to complain about the others together. But he can’t tell her why he’s hurt. He can’t tell her that he wants to slice his wrists open every time someone brings up Ms. Klinsky. He can’t tell her that he’s over forty years old and still gets crippling nightmares about their high school librarian pinning him down on the floor of her office once every week. He can’t tell her that Mac is right, that he hurts other people because he loses control and can’t come back into his own body, that he’s mentally stuck at age fourteen, and how does he keep finding himself in these positions, being pimped out by his father to have sex with older women who remind of the putrid bitch and he spends all his time shoving his fingers down his throat thinking about his mother in all of this, and then he’s a stripper, booked by even older women, who are drunk and handsy and why on earth did he think taking out his dick for money was a good idea that would make it easier to repress his trauma, and then he’s twenty-six again, waking up hungover in some guy’s bed, and he has no idea how he got there. And now he’s forty-two and he’s waking up hungover in some guy’s bed and he’s never wanted to die more than he does now.   


Dennis shoots out of bed.

He turns. Hunter is still asleep. In the bed where Dennis was. Dennis can’t breathe. A lump so solid Dennis thinks it might turn into vomit bubbles in his throat. His eyes are burning, and quickly turning out tears. Dennis lets out a loud, clipped sob as he stumbles through the en suite door. He shuts it, locks it, collapses on top of the fuzzy bath mat. 

He can’t do this.

He can’t keep living.

Dennis’ hands tremble as he pulls open the vanity drawers, looking for razor blades or pills or bleach - anything at all that would get the job done. If he doesn’t end it right now, he isn’t sure the world could keep on spinning. He has to do this before anyone gets the slimmest chance to stop him.

He gets his hand on a bottle of Prozac. He knows the lethal dose is upwards of twenty-three pills. He wrestles the cap off, looks inside, counts out the pills. He isn’t sure there’s enough so he dumps all the pills on the polished cement floor. He counts: four, seven, ten, fourteen, eighteen, twenty, twenty-three, twenty-five, twenty-seven. He’s fucking lucky this guy just got a refill.

Without any consideration of hesitation, Dennis throws the pills back, chews, puts his mouth under the running faucet until everything goes down. He feels woozy, so, so woozy. He collapses to the floor again, crashing hard against his knees and palms. A shock of pain goes through his right elbow. His stomach is revolting, and he starts to panic.

“No, no, no, no.”

His mouth fills with saliva, and his gut tightens. He grinds his teeth together, hard.

“No, no, no! Come on, please - no.  _ No, no _ .”

Distantly, Dennis hears banging on the door behind him.

He lurches forward, and unable to stop it, vomits into the toilet bowl. He heaves a breath and counts at least five pills. 

“Fuck. No - “

Another wave of vomit. Three more pills.

“Dennis! Dennis, open up!”

More vomit. Four more pills.

“Dennis!”

The sound of wood snapping, the door breaking open.

“Jesus Christ, Dennis.”

More vomit, two more pills.

“Fuck,” he croaks.

“Are those my pills? Dennis, did you take my pills,  _ Jesus Christ _ ?”

More vomit. Four more pills.

“Don’t worry,” Dennis gasps. “I fucking failed.”

“Dennis, what the fuck. Jesus Christ - were you trying to _ kill yourself  _ in my bathroom?”

“Well,  _ I didn’t! _ ” Dennis roars. He’s immediately thrust into another round of vomiting, in which he assumes most of the rest of the pills come up. “Goddamnit.” He’s crying, hot tears stinging against his already raw face. How much more fucking embarrassing can this get?

“Okay, okay, okay,” Hunter is babbling, swiping up the empty pill bottle and stuffing it into his pocket. “We have to get you to a hospital.”

“No!” Dennis yells “I’m not going to a fucking hospital. I puked everything up. Nothing’s gonna happen.”

“You just tried to kill yourself!” Hunter shouts, stupefied. Dennis doesn’t care. His vision is blurry. He’s tired. He wants to sleep on this bath mat.

Dennis hums. “It doesn’t matter. I’ve tried to kill myself a hundred times. Just another one for the books.”   
  
Hunter splutters something incoherent. He’s hovering over Dennis with an insane look on his face. “Well, fuck. I’m not going to leave you alone. Sh - shit I have work. Wait? You said you had a roommate, right? Is he home?”

Dennis groans. “I don’t even know what time it is,” he mumbles. Why the  _ hell _ is he so tired?

“It’s seven am. I’m taking you home.”

“No,” Dennis hisses. “Fuck, no. I can’t - I can’t - “

“Dennis, if you won’t go to the hospital, I’m taking you home.” Hunter has gotten to his knees now. He places a gentle hand on Dennis’ shoulder blade. He flinches anyway. His breath hitches. He’s crying again.

“Dennis - ?”

“Fine,” he chokes. “Take me home.”

It doesn’t matter.

He’ll kill himself the next second Mac isn’t looking.

.

Mac has been pacing the floor for thirty minutes, after receiving a mysterious text from an unknown number that read, “i’m bringing your roommate home. he’s in rough shape, but won’t go to the hospital.”

Fuck.

He never pushes at the right times, or backs off when Dennis actually needs it. He can’t even imagine what Dennis did at this point. He could be going through crack withdrawals, or splintered his hand in a fistfight, or cut it close with alcohol poisoning.

Mac feels electric. He spent most of the night calling Dennis every fifteen minutes and debating on whether or not to file a missing persons report. He’d passed out some time around 5:30, only to be woken up by the ominous text. Mac chews on his cheek.

He jumps at least three feet in the air when someone knocks on the front door. He doesn’t even check through the peephole, but yanks the door open as fast as possible. As expected, Dennis is slumped against someone who looks vaguely like Mac in the doorway. Mac hurries to take Dennis into his arms.

Dennis tries to bypass him, but Mac grabs him tightly. He tries to fight, but he’s weak.

“What happened?” Mac asks.

“He took my entire bottle of anti-depressants and then puked them all up.”

Mac feels like a bullet bursts through his heart. Goddamnit. He’d hoped Dennis hadn’t made it to the worst option.

“I’m sorry,” Mac sighs. “Thank you for bringing him home.” He aims to shut the door, but this dumbass beefcake puts up his hand.

“You’re going to make sure he’s okay, right?”

Mac looks to Dennis’ face and sees his unfocused eyes and cracked lips. “Yeah,” he says, unsure of whether or not he’s lying. He shuts the door, and helps Dennis to the couch. Dennis collapses, closing his eyes as his head hits the cushion behind him.

“Dennis, why?”

Dennis takes a deep, shuddering breath. After a minute, he opens his eyes and looks up at Mac without quite making eye contact. He’s barely in his own head.

“Everything you said was right,” Dennis breathes. His eyes fill with moisture. “I want to kill myself  _ so badly. _ And it’s the right thing to do.”

A tear drops swiftly down Mac’s cheek. He reaches down, and hauls Dennis up and against his chest.

“Dennis Reynolds, I love you.” He moves his hands to Dennis’ cheeks and kisses him roughly. Dennis tastes like alcohol and bile, but Mac doesn’t care. 

Nothing in Dennis’ expression changes. Mac’s heart shatters.

“I want to go to sleep,” Dennis whispers. 

Mac nods.

“Can I - will you just hold me, Mac?”

Mac nods again and sits back. He wraps an arm around Dennis’ shoulders, and uses the other to give Dennis a place to rest his head. He pulls a blanket down from the back of the couch and drapes it over Dennis. Dennis curls against him.

Someday, Dennis is going to kill himself. Mac knows this. That belief used to be punctured by a small bit of hope. Hope that came from Dennis taking his medication and seeing a therapist. Mac remembers Dennis’ therapist telling them that the longer Borderline Personality Disorder went untreated, the longer it would take to recover. Mac isn’t stupid. He knows Dennis has struggled with this his whole life. And maybe there was a moment that Mac believed Dennis could beat this, but he knows better now. Dennis gave up recovery when he came back from North Dakota.   
  
Dennis will have more breakdowns like this. He’ll probably have another one before the end of the month. Mac will do what he always does. He’ll talk Dennis down, and Dennis will live to see another day. It’s not productive to think about the day that it won’t work, so instead, Mac presses a gentle kiss to Dennis’ forehead now, runs his hand through Dennis’ sweaty hair, and listens to his soft snores.


End file.
